Washington County Hospital is a 22 bed Critical Access Hospital (CAH) accredited by The Joint Commission (TJC). We provide acute care, swing/skilled care, surgical services, gynecological services and a full range of ancillary services. We also have a 28 bed long term care unit. WCH is located in Nashville, IL just 50 miles east of St. Louis, MO. WCH is affiliated with SSM Healthcare St. Louis and SSM St. Mary’s/ Good Samaritan, Inc. in Centralia and Mt. Vernon.
The Critical Access Hospital Program was created by the 1997 federal Balanced Budget Act as a safety net device, to assure Medicare beneficiaries access to health care services in rural areas. It was designed to allow more flexible staffing options relative to community need, simplify billing methods and create incentives to develop local integrated health delivery systems, including acute, primary, emergency and long-term care. More information on the CAH Program can be found at www.cms.hhs.gov.
Washington County Hospital is also a member of the Illinois Critical Access Hospital Network (ICAHN). The network’s mission is to strengthen each hospital through collaboration and to receive value from ICAHN through network core activities, committees, educational programs, special projects and the connectivity provided by the IT systems. More information on ICAHN can be found at www.icahn.org.
TJC accreditation is important to our patients, providers and staff because…. The standards are regarded as the most rigorous in the industry, critical access hospitals that choose to be evaluated by TJC are therefore committed to providing the highest level of quality care to their patients. TJC’s gold seal of approval is a clear sign that the accredited organization has demonstrated compliance to the most stringent standards of performance. More information on TJC can be found at www.jcaho.org.
“Our mission is to forge partnerships to improve the health of our community through service excellence.”